Benjamin M. Hanson

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Benjamin M. Hanson is a Partner of Capstar Partners, LLC and serves as its General Counsel. Since joining Capstar Partners in 2005, Ben has been responsible for providing senior leadership with respect to the sourcing, evaluation and analysis, and execution of a variety of transactions in the media, publishing, real estate and hospitality sectors. In addition to, and simultaneously with, his work for Capstar Partners, Ben has taken significant operating roles with three different Capstar Partners portfolio companies – Harden Healthcare Texas, LP, DMX Holdings, Inc. and Andrew Harper, Inc. Most recently, Ben was named Senior Vice President and General Counsel of Harden Healthcare, currently Capstar Partner’s largest investment. Harden Healthcare provides long term, post acute care to seniors, including skilled nursing and assisted living centers, home healthcare, hospice, rehabilitation and other services in nine states. Prior to joining Harden Healthcare in an operating role, Ben previously served as the General Counsel of DMX Holdings, Inc., a business media services company, and Andrew Harper, Inc., a provider of unique, high-end travel advice and other services. While at DMX, Ben proved to be an integral part of the DMX leadership team, and was primarily responsible for a variety of non-core asset dispositions, and the conception and implementation of an industry-unique direct licensing model that significantly lowered DMX’s historical content-sourcing costs and greatly enhanced the company’s negotiating leverage relative to other industry competitors. Before joining Capstar Partners, and serving in the foregoing operating capacities, Ben served as a member of Texas Governor Rick Perry’s Senior Staff, and as Chief of Staff and General Counsel for Texas Secretaries of State J. Roger Williams and Geoffrey S. Connor. Prior to his government experience, Ben worked as General Counsel for an internet software start-up, CLIX Network, Inc., engaged primarily in the delivery of music via personal computers. Ben began his legal career in the Dallas office of Jenkens & Gilchrist, a Professional Corporation, as an associate in the Corporate & Securities Group. Ben’s legal and business experience includes extensive familiarity with state and federal level executive and legislative issues, the representation of public and private corporations, partnerships and other entities and individuals generally, and in connection with the planning, due diligence, structuring, negotiating and closing of mergers, acquisitions, and other capital-raising transactions (from venture and seed capital financings to public offerings of equity and debt securities), as well as general corporate, business, and securities counseling, and best practices concerning compliance and risk/litigation management. Ben graduated in 1996 after three years at the University of Texas at Austin with a double major in Plan II Honors and Government. Following his undergraduate degree, Ben obtained his law degree from the Dedman School of Law at Southern Methodist University in 1999.